Desiring GodThe Desiring God RSS Feedhttp://www.desiringgod.org/
enThe Sovereign Hand of SleeplessnessKristin Tabb<img alt="The Sovereign Hand of Sleeplessness" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8604/full_the-sovereign-hand-of-sleeplessness.jpg?1424213679" /><p>I am on the red-eye flight to school-aged children, and I’m weary of the tiredness.</p>
<p>Fellow parents of young children know what I mean by this, with their own recent memories of recurring nights in which each little person in the house seemed to need something, desperately, between the hours of midnight and five o’clock.</p>
<p>But even if this is not your situation, you probably have some other form of exhaustion breathing down your neck right now. The job with relentless billable-hour expectations. The endless ream of readings, exams, and papers due soon. Or the aging body that never seems to be fully rested anymore.</p>
<p>Fighting off stress, worry, and anxiety can become a nightly battle even when one does manage to go to bed early, making it difficult to get the mental peace that often serves as a precursor to physical peace.</p>
<p>The lack of rest feels like an enemy, and to some extent, it is. The dysfunction of a fallen world guarantees that we will never have quite enough hours in the day, that our bodies too often won’t cooperate with our desire for rest, and that we will feel our physical limitations deeply.</p>
<h2>Sleep Is a Gift from God</h2>
<p>Sleeplessness can leave us vulnerable to temptation and weakness. Modern pundits tell of the consequences of accumulated restlessness on the mind, body, and soul. God has designed our bodies to need rest; the gift of sleep reminds us that we are not sovereign, that we are not omnipotent, but that God is both of these, and more, to us his children.</p>
<p>The gift of sleep is really a gift of dependence, an invitation to trust the God who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) and who “gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). So sleep, and the need for it, is good. And we should seek to get enough rest as far as it depends on us to do so.</p>
<p><em>But then what do we do with sleeplessness?</em> There are seasons, sometimes long ones, in which we cannot seem to get the desired amount of sleep in spite of our best efforts. Perhaps working the graveyard shift doesn’t allow for quite enough rest overall, or there is extra schooling, or a second job on top of normal work hours, or chronic illness, or several small people at home who can awaken any number of times during the night for any number of reasons.</p>
<p>I recall one night in particular after our third child was born in which each of our children paraded into our room, one after the other, all night long, needing bed sheets changed, nightmares soothed, infant tummies filled, and I no longer remember what else. It felt planned. It wasn’t, of course.</p>
<p>Actually, it was, but my children were not the masterminds. My sovereign God (and yours) has ordained every night of my life, just as he has ordained my every day. He is the author of the number of times I wake each night, just as he is the author of each one of the days of my life, be they blissful, benign, or “bad.” And so whether I wake one time or six on any given night, he knows that, and he has, in fact, designed that night as part of my life, for my ultimate good, and his ultimate glory.</p>
<h2>God at Work When We Can’t Sleep</h2>
<p>The God who has accomplished my salvation, from start to finish, is the God who ordained it before the beginning of the world (Ephesians 1:4–5). Will the God who chose me from before the beginning of time forget me, now that it is the middle of the night and I can feel every ounce of energy I had stored for tomorrow draining away?</p>
<p>The answer is an emphatic no. And here is the solution to the practical dilemma of exhaustion, the place where exhaustion becomes a steering wheel that drives us toward God in a different way than sleep does. Sleeplessness causes us to look away from ourselves — our capacity, our resources, our energy reserve, our mental acumen, our physical strength, and our careful planning and scheming — and it causes us to rely solely on him who “does not faint or grow weary” (Isaiah 40:28). It is there, in the middle of the night, with the baby — or computer, or hospital IV, or mental stressor — that we find ourselves coming to the end of ourselves. And the end of ourselves is a very good place to be.</p>
<p>The reason we fear sleeplessness so much is because we know that we will come face to face with our limitations, our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities. We will find we are not all-sufficient, that we cannot provide what we need to get through the next day. But “fear not,” our Father tells us, “for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).</p>
<p>God himself is the only All-Sufficient One. He always has been. He always will be. He brings sleeplessness into our lives so that we will remember this. In this place of exhaustion, we find God’s grace to be ever present.</p>
<h2>Tired and Trusting</h2>
<p>A morning in which I can barely pry my eyes open is an invitation to run — <em>run, not walk</em> — into the arms of my Father, who has promised never to leave me or forsake me, who has given me his Holy Spirit, who has promised that if I seek first his kingdom and his righteousness in <em>this</em> day of sandpaper eyes and aching muscles, that <em>all these things</em> are mine – including the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control that Jesus purchased at the cross.</p>
<p>So I rest in this: <em>“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”</em> (Luke 12:32). No longer is a good day one in which I wake up well-rested. A good day is one in which I can look back at the end of it and see God’s provision in my lack, his sufficient grace in my moments of weakness, his forgiveness to cover my failures, and more of his joy, laughter, kindness, patience, and love coming out of my mouth than I would have dared to dream when I dragged myself out of bed that morning. Tired, but happy, <em>in Jesus</em> is a good place to be.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.</em> (Isaiah 40:30–31)</p></blockquote>
<hr />
<h2>Related Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-brief-theology-of-sleep">A Brief Theology of Sleep</a> (article)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/anti-depressants-sleep-diet-and-exercise">Anti-depressants, Sleep, Diet, and Exercise</a> (interview)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-we-really-sleep-in">Why We Really Sleep In</a> (article)</p></li>
</ul>Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-sovereign-hand-of-sleeplessness
desiringgod.org-resource-8604Take Care, BrothersJohn Piper<img alt="Take Care, Brothers" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8647/full_take-care-brothers.jpg?1425406355" /><p>When you come across an if/then statement, restate the condition and study the implications. For instance, can someone who has truly been saved fall away from the faith? John Piper answers in this lab.</p><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/labs/take-care-brothers">Watch Now</a></p>Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/labs/take-care-brothers
desiringgod.org-resource-8647Are You Destined to Possess the Glory of Christ?John Piper<img alt="Are You Destined to Possess the Glory of Christ?" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8644/full_are-you-destined-to-possess-the-glory-of-christ.jpg?1425348641" /><p>What I want you to enjoy as you read this is the <em>destiny</em> of your calling, the aim — the God-appointed, blood-bought, Spirit-assured <em>goal</em> of your life. What is the final, highest enjoyment in your future?</p>
<blockquote><p>God chose you as the firstfruits for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth, to which he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:13–14)</p></blockquote>
<p>Your election and salvation and sanctification and faith and calling are all aiming at this: “that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The <em>caller</em> is God.</p></li>
<li><p>The <em>root</em> of the call is election.</p></li>
<li><p>The <em>instrument</em> of the call is the gospel.</p></li>
<li><p>The <em>pathway</em> to the goal of the call is holiness and faith.</p></li>
<li><p>The <em>workers</em> of holiness and faith are the Spirit and truth.</p></li>
<li><p>And the <em>goal</em> of the call is the <em>possession</em> of the glory of Christ.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, “<em>possession</em> of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” is the literal translation. The glory of Christ will be your <em>possession.</em> This is your final, highest enjoyment in the future. You will come into the possession of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>What does that mean?</p>
<h2>First, dwell on his <em>glory</em>.</h2>
<p><em>His glory is the brightness and the nature of the Creator of the universe.</em></p>
<p>“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).</p>
<p><em>His glory is the sum of all the beauties of love and wisdom and power that he revealed in his earthly life.</em></p>
<p>“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14).</p>
<p><em>His glory is the triumph of every battle he wins over all his personal, global, and universal enemies.</em></p>
<p>“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12).</p>
<p><em>His glory is the eternal radiance of the light of God replacing the sun and moon forever.</em></p>
<p>“The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23).</p>
<p>You were made for this glory. This alone will satisfy the longings of your heart. Jesus prayed that you would see his glory in its fullness, on the other side of his resurrection: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24).</p>
<p>Now in 2 Thessalonians 2:14 Paul says we are destined for “the possession of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”</p>
<h2>So now dwell on <em>possession</em>.</h2>
<p>The glory of Christ is our “blessed hope.” We long for him to appear. “We wait for our blessed hope, <em>the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ</em>” (Titus 2:13).</p>
<p>When it appears — when <em>he</em> appears shining with <em>it</em> — we will see him. More truly, more clearly, more compellingly, more emotionally, more attentively, more undividedly than we have ever seen anything or anyone — good or evil. All the good emotions we have ever known, and all the good aspects of all the bad emotions, will come together in the fearful, unprecedented joy of that sight.</p>
<p>Then we will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and we will become glorious as he is glorious. We will be changed by the sight of his incomparable glory. “When he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). For now, we suffer with him. But this happens “in order that we may also <em>be glorified with him</em>” (Romans 8:17).</p>
<p>Our <em>union</em> with him will be changed from invisible to visible. And <em>in him</em> we will become glorious. “God has called you to his eternal glory <em>in Christ</em>” (1 Peter 5:10). The union will be mutually radiant, so that not only are we glorified in him, but also he in us. “The name of our Lord Jesus <em>will be glorified in you</em>, and <em>you in him</em>” (2 Thessalonians 1:12). And we will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father (Matthew 13:43).</p>
<p>And thus we will be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). Which means that we will not only be given the <em>radiance</em> of the Son, but the <em>character</em> of the Son — the heart-eyes of the Son. With this character and these heart-eyes we will be able to see and enjoy the gift of the Son’s radiance <em>in</em> us, and the gift of the Son’s radiance <em>before</em> us, in such a way that our own radiance will never tempt us to think we are God. He himself will always be the height and the depth of our glory and our joy.</p>
<p>This is the goal of our calling, our life — the possession of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Related Articles</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-eighth-decade-of-life-and-the-ultimate-purpose-of-god">The Eighth Decade of Life and the Ultimate Purpose of God</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/new-year-new-adjective-christ-exalting">New Year, New Adjective: “Christ-Exalting”</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-to-find-strength-in-the-strength-of-god">How to Find Strength in the Strength of God</a></p></li>
</ul>Tue, 03 Mar 2015 02:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/are-you-destined-to-possess-the-glory-of-christ
desiringgod.org-resource-8644The Great Achievers Are the Great BelieversJon Bloom<img alt="The Great Achievers Are the Great Believers" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8642/full_the-great-achievers-are-the-great-believers.jpg?1425312502" /><p>Most people want their lives to count for something. Something deep inside them wants to make some kind of difference in the world, to leave a mark, a lasting legacy. It is a longing for significance to do something “great.”</p>
<p>But for most people this pregnant desire miscarries because they don’t believe that what is truly great <em>is</em> great. They believe in the fool’s gold of false greatness achieved through personal achievements.</p>
<h2>False Greatness</h2>
<p>Have you noticed that in the Bible, God largely ignores all the events and people that would have garnered the headlines of the ancient world and would have had all the Sunday morning pundits of that age earnestly discussing and debating? For the most part, God ignores the “great” people. He’s just not very impressed with the empire builders, great political leaders, military geniuses, philosophers, poets, writers, artists, architects, entertainers, and other historical high-achievers. When he does mention them, frequently it’s to expose the ridiculousness of their inflated false sense of personal greatness. Pharaoh in Exodus and Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel are the poster children of false greatness. They at least get a biblical mention, though perhaps they would have preferred obscurity. God doesn’t even waste his ink on most of the rest.</p>
<p>When God’s eyes ran to and fro throughout the earth to give strong support to the one who was great in his eyes (2 Chronicles 16:9), the worldly greats did not capture his attention.</p>
<h2>True Greatness</h2>
<p>Who did capture his attention? People like Abraham.</p>
<p>By worldly standards, what did Abraham really achieve during his lifetime? What did he have to show for his life when he died? Not much. He had two sons (one of them estranged), owned one tiny piece of property (a grave-cave) and some wealth in livestock. And yet Abraham, by God’s standards, was one of the greatest men who ever lived.</p>
<p>What made Abraham great? One thing: Abraham believed God (Genesis 15:6, Galatians 3:6). He believed God with his whole being. He banked his life on the belief that God existed and rewarded those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). He believed in God’s promises so much that he did not even have to receive what was promised in his lifetime (Hebrews 11:13). And his belief in God led him to obey God’s call on him to leave his kin and culture and go live in a foreign land as an alien and exile for the sake of God’s glory and his future purposes (Hebrews 11:8–9, 13). And Abraham’s faith-filled obedience to seek God’s kingdom first changed the course of human history — and is still changing it.</p>
<p>Note this: Hardly any of Abraham’s earthly contemporaries is remembered and none, except those who shared his faith in God, continue to make a difference in the world.</p>
<h2>Give Up Pursuits of Piddly Greatness!</h2>
<p>What great pursuit are you devoting your life to? What is it that you want to achieve? What do you really believe will make the biggest difference in the world? How you answer these questions will dictate how you will invest the one life you have to live.</p>
<p>Don’t believe the promises of false greatness. Nebuchadnezzar was about as high an achiever as a human can get and his greatness was piddly compared to Abraham’s. Give up the pursuit of piddly greatness! You’ll never find it in the achievements the world admires most.</p>
<p>The truly great people in God’s eyes are not the great achievers but the great believers. They really believe God and therefore seek his kingdom first (Matthew 6:33). They know that they have no greatness of their own — all greatness is God’s — so they are free to be the servants of all (Mark 9:35). Because they know that here they “have no lasting city” (Hebrews 13:14) their eyes are set on the city with everlasting foundations (Hebrews 11:10). That’s where they lay up their treasures (Matthew 6:20), and so they are happy to forego them here as God calls. And the great believers are willing to go into foreign lands and live on the promises of God for the sake of God’s purposes to bless all the families of the earth (Genesis 28:14, Matthew 28:19–20).</p>
<p>The true greatness of the glory of God and his global purposes is the burden and call of this book: <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/books/cross"><em>Cross: Unrivaled Christ, Unstoppable Gospel, Unreached Peoples, Unending Joy</em></a>. It is a call for us to give up pursuits of piddly, ephemeral delusions of greatness and to live the truly great life of radical faith in God, following him as he leads into all the world in order that the gospel will be preached to and believed by every people group on the face of the planet. This is what God is up to in the world. All the events that capture today’s headlines will one day look like historical footnotes in comparison.</p>
<p>In the end, the great believers are the truly great achievers. They build the house that God is building and therefore the greatest house and only house that will last (Psalm 127:1). What they have to show of their lives when they die may not look like much. But what they have built will go on growing forever. It will make an eternal difference; it will leave an eternal mark, the longest-lasting legacy.</p>
<p>Don’t let your desire for greatness miscarry. Make your life count for the one thing that really matters. And let <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/books/cross">this book</a> (for purchase or free PDF) help guide you towards true greatness.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Related Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/without-faith-it-is-impossible-to-please-god">Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God</a> (sermon)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-thrilling-now-of-christian-mission?lang=en">The Thrilling “Now” of Christian Mission</a> (article)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-to-do-when-faith-dies">What to Do When Faith Dies</a> (article)</p></li>
</ul>Mon, 02 Mar 2015 15:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-great-achievers-are-the-great-believers
desiringgod.org-resource-8642Generosity Begins at HomeDavid Mathis<img alt="Generosity Begins at Home" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8641/full_generosity-begins-at-home.jpg?1425253741" /><p>What we do with money really matters — for the gospel frontiers and for our own families.</p>
<p>Whether we daydream about it, or ignore it and wish it would just go away, or hoard it, or spend it, how we handle money reveals a lot about us. “Where your treasure is,” says Jesus, “there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).</p>
<p>Some of the Bible’s gravest warnings deal with money. These are some of the sharpest words in all of Paul’s letters:</p>
<blockquote><p>Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9–10)</p></blockquote>
<p>If we take the Scriptures seriously, we’re right to be at least a little bit scared about what our sinful souls might do with money.</p>
<h2>Tool in the Hands of Eternity</h2>
<p>But as tentative as we might be about mammon, avoiding it will not make it go away. Jesus wasn’t too spiritual to deal realistically and honestly with money, and neither should his followers. In fact, we can easily fall off the horse the other way and put ourselves under the condemnation of these equally sharp barbs from Paul:</p>
<blockquote><p>If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)</p></blockquote>
<p>There are complexities here. Yes, money can be dangerous. “To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure” (Titus 1:15). But money itself is not evil, and can be a powerful tool in the hands of eternity. “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).</p>
<p>A simplistic view of money — whether focusing only on its power for good, or merely on its potential for ill — misses the texture of the biblical portrait. How, then, do we move toward getting this balance better in our lives? And in particular, how to we go about using money to magnify our global God while not neglecting or minimizing the temporal needs of those to whom God has entrusted us?</p>
<h2>Money and “The Things of Earth”</h2>
<p>Providing helpful perspective on this question is one reason (among many) that I’m thankful for Joe Rigney’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Things-Earth-Treasuring-Enjoying/dp/1433544733"><em>The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts</em></a>. Rigney tells his own story about growing up in relative affluence, in a typical evangelical church, and coming in college to embrace a bigger vision of God and his global cause.</p>
<p>His simplistic response, he now admits, was a short-sighted version of <em>strategic</em> living. But what passed for a bachelor hit the rocks in marriage. Thank God for his patient wife Jenny who helped him see that there was more to “strategic” than fixating on the immediate cost of a potential purchase. He mentions a “heated discussion” they had over purchasing a desk for their home. He wanted a used, cheap, particle-board piece from Craigslist; she thought it would be wiser and more strategic in the long-term to invest in something more enduring, and wouldn’t need replacing so soon.</p>
<blockquote><p>Essentially my wife pointed out to me that I wasn’t thinking strategically <em>enough</em>. Short-term thinking is often not strategic. This isn’t to say that you must always choose the quality desk over the cheap one. The point is to stress the great variety of factors to consider in our purchases and not to fixate on one dimension or another. (211)</p></blockquote>
<p>Rigney fleshes out several of the dimensions worth considering in addition to being far-sighted: having a fitting appreciation for aesthetics and the role of appearances in the home, as well as the value of time, and in particular, what we’re communicating to others by our purchases. His point is that “money exists for people” (205).</p>
<p>As tempted as we might be to think that pinching pennies at every point, and then sending our savings to the gospel front lines overseas, is the inescapably Christian practice, there is something to be said for our generosity beginning at home. Which is not to say, <em>indulge your personal comforts</em>, but forgo them for the sake of demonstrating care and concern for your spouse and children.</p>
<h2>Family Is Part of the Front</h2>
<p>This doesn’t mean we fleece the nations to pad the homestead. But it does mean that showing generosity to those closest to home, and in our homes, is in fact <em>strategic</em> for gospel purposes.</p>
<blockquote><p>The front includes people and relationships that are closer to home. Family is part of the front. If we’re parents, our children are part of the front. God has called us to raise them in the Lord, to communicate in word and deed and demeanor what it means that God is our Father through Christ. . . . [G]enerosity with our kids is one of the main ways that we can create kids who are generous themselves. (206–207)</p></blockquote>
<p>In our sin, we’re prone to cut ourselves financial slack while tightening the purse strings on others, sometimes especially those in our own household. But the gospel turns that on its head. When funds are limited, our inclinations should be to deprive ourselves in order to be generous toward others, especially those under our own roof.</p>
<p>It’s a lesson I’ve been too slow to learn in the wake of my own (good) disillusionment with the American Dream, and a newfound heart for the nations and the completion of the Commission. Convinced of the great spiritual and material needs around the globe, I’ve too often overlooked the opportunities for generosity closest to home. It’s convicting that side-by-side with “not a lover of money” is “he must manage his household well” (1 Timothy 3:3–4). Jesus had a name for those who said their finances were “given to God,” while neglecting to care for their own family: hypocrites (Matthew 15:4–7).</p>
<p>It’s easy to justify my own material wants as strategic for the kingdom (like books, certain technologies, and did I mention books?), while being overly skeptical of the material desires of my own wife and children. With Rigney’s help, I’m learning to see money as a tool not only for external ministry and global missions, but also for the ministry of husbanding and fathering, for communicating the love and concern of Christ abroad <em>and at home</em>.</p>
<p>Rigney and I may be in the minority — perhaps most American Christians struggle with very different issues financially — but I’m freshly inspired to apply these words from Paul both to the frontiers and to my own family:</p>
<blockquote><p>I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. (2 Corinthians 12:14–15)</p></blockquote>
<hr />
<p>Related Resources:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/generosity-the-open-hands-of-the-gospel">The Open Hands of the Gospel</a> (interviews)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/be-generous-with-your-master-s-money">Be Generous with Your Master’s Money</a> (article)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/i-seek-not-what-is-yours-but-you">I Seek Not What Is Yours, But You</a> (message)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Things-Earth-Treasuring-Enjoying/dp/1433544733?tag=desigod04-20"><em>The Things of Earth</em></a> (book)</p></li>
</ul>Mon, 02 Mar 2015 00:45:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/generosity-begins-at-home
desiringgod.org-resource-8641Preaching Jesus with Our SongsJoseph Tenney<img alt="Preaching Jesus with Our Songs" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8633/full_preaching-jesus-in-our-songs.jpg?1425074359" /><p>Great music-makers, in their own way, are like evangelists. They witness to the truth and goodness and transcendental beauty of God.</p>
<p>Renowned composer Hans Zimmer (who wrote the scores to <em>Dark Knight</em> and <em>Inception</em>, among others) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/interstellar-hans-zimmer-sound-critics-2014-11">responded to sound critics</a> who felt his music in <em>Interstellar</em> overpowered multiple moments of the film and oftentimes prevented the audience from understanding the actor’s words.</p>
<p>Zimmer spoke with director Christopher Nolan on their previous film, <em>Inception</em>,</p>
<blockquote><p>I want to take you on an adventure. And it’s not a science class. These days we’re being fed nothing but information, but emotionally, I think we get less and less experience in anything because . . . everything is so cleaned up and we’re losing the edge . . . the mystery of things.</p></blockquote>
<p>The <em>mystery</em> Zimmer is referring to is that spontaneous, unplanned, surprising phenomenon that occurs when a person is opened up by encountering beauty, what theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar called, “inner-worldly beauty.” And I wonder, could the same be said of our church’s services when we gather together — a gathering filled only with information where we’ve cleaned everything up?</p>
<p>Zimmer continues,</p>
<blockquote><p>When I go and see a great opera, I usually can’t understand the words anyway, but I’m still on this amazing emotional journey. What I’m interested in ultimately is quite simply this: I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I want you to have the possibility of feeling something. What you feel is what you bring to it. I want you to be a co-conspirator in the music, and in a funny way, a co-creator in it.</p></blockquote>
<h2>The Danger of Sentimentality</h2>
<p>Why are Zimmer’s remarks, edges notwithstanding, relevant for the church, and perhaps especially those of us charged with designing the musical arts to shape a worshiping community week after week? Indeed, Zimmer’s comments may be applicable for song leaders and music pastors. One of the most serious threats to mystery, and a great enemy of the church, is sentimentality. John Witvliet, the director for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship says, “Christian worship is like a magnet for sentimental artwork — melodies, images, metaphors and palettes of color that succeed at making corporate worship pleasant and utterly innocuous.”</p>
<p>Like Zimmer, C.S. Lewis despised sentimental authors who did all the work for the reader, telling them how to feel and what to think. The same should be asked of our song leaders: Are we doing the work of the congregation for the congregation, thus making corporate worship pleasant, but utterly innocuous? Why should we listen to Zimmer when we think about the music we make week in and week out?</p>
<h2>Perceiving the Beautiful</h2>
<p>First, some of us might have a tendency to value songs for their usefulness rather than their beauty. Balthasar felt that “we no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.” While we rightly elevate theological richness in the songs we sing, we also would do well to appreciate music’s God-given beauty and power to lead people to the Transcendental Beauty himself, our Triune God.</p>
<p>This will require pastors and artists to recapture a vision of beauty that is not at odds with accessibility or practicality, but one that’s mindful of context and insistent on a rich theological aesthetic. We would do well to avoid reducing the role of music entirely to service to the spoken word. It may be that our good desire for right doctrine has so taken priority in our thinking that we’ve diminished the importance and possibilities of aesthetic in our gatherings, let alone our songs.</p>
<p>In discussing the “sound issues” with <em>Interstellar</em>, Nolan said, “It’s not true that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue.” He’s right. We must value and uphold words, sound doctrine, passionate preaching and proclamation, and clear teaching; but the very realities we’re tasked with preaching and teaching are simply too profound, too glorious, and too weighty to remain in the realm of monologue and dialogue. We must sing. These realities are not to be merely analyzed, but they’re to be felt, experienced, enjoyed, and delighted in — all things that music and song serve.</p>
<p>Songs, like a sermon, are vessels of communication, to be sure, but they are vessels made up of more than one layer — tone, melody, meter, lyric, and more. The hazard of linking profound lyrics with forgettable and middle-of-the-road music is a real problem for song leaders — there’s simply not enough time, or it seems the words sufficiently communicate, or the music is good enough, or this go-to progression works. So it might be helpful for us to consider whether we possess a utilitarian view of music and art, and if we do, work hard to rid ourselves of it — perhaps simply by taking extended time to consider the impact and effort of music and song. After all, one of our most beloved books of the Bible, Psalms, is dedicated to this.</p>
<h2>Embracing Mystery</h2>
<p>Second, we should consider opening ourselves to mystery and spontaneity. Consider Zimmer’s words in the context of the church: “<em>Christian worship</em> is not a science class. These days we’re being fed nothing but information, but emotionally, I think we get less and less experience in <em>our gatherings</em> because <em>our liturgy</em> is so cleaned up and we’re losing the edge, the mystery of things.”</p>
<p>It’s true that gathering together as the church isn’t like a science class where we sit and only take notes; rather it’s where we actually carry out the science experiment and put behaviors and responses and postures to action and open ourselves to the unplanned and surprising work of God’s Spirit in Christ among us. Christian worship free from emotion and mystery produces unexceptional and tame views of God, not to mention ponderous music.</p>
<p>Most of us have come face to face with something truly beautiful — standing before Niagara Falls, an exquisite painting, or a beautiful film. All great beauty opens us up to experience things we otherwise would never experience. It expands the soul. It produces a longing in our hearts for wholeness in a world of brokenness, for something right and ordered in a world of chaos. When we perceive various forms of beauty around us, they have a unique quality of moving us by their beauty toward the glory of our Lord.</p>
<h2>Music That Announces</h2>
<p>Part of our task as corporate song leaders is not only to think deeply about our lyrics, or the accessibility of the melody, but the beauty of it. Our music should have an announcing quality to it — announcing to our people that they can feel something. Zimmer has this right. Though just feeling anything will not be enough for us. We want them to feel in accordance with the truth announced and sung.</p>
<p>In some sense, then, the song leader and congregation may be said to be co-conspirators, co-creators in the music — together singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, creating in that moment something that could never have been achieved unless they had come together to be shaped by the Spirit of God in Christ through the work of the liturgy. It can’t be experienced in a science class. The musician brings a work of art to be enjoyed, experienced, enacted, and embodied by the congregation in the context of worship. It is a beautiful picture of unity and diversity, simplicity and complexity.</p>
<p>If Ivan Illich’s words are true, “We live in a world that does not carry within itself the reason for its own existence,” then music must play a significant role in our achieving clarity and inspiration. Music can say to the hardened heart, “There is meaning to your existence! There is purpose behind why you are here!”</p>
<p>Music is an ongoing exercise that, at its best, creates channels for the gospel to illuminate our lives in light of who God is. God gave Moses a song in Deuteronomy 31 so that when the children of Israel went through various trials and troubles, the song would confront them as a testimony to whom their God was. This is true of all great music; it speaks with clarity of the God of beauty behind the music.</p>
<p>If our argument week after week before our people is that we are to have our existence storied by the gospel, then beautiful music is intrinsic to the argument we are making. So we aim in our songs for both truth and beauty. We write music that announces and raises the affections of our congregations as high as they can go in proportion to the truth, as Jonathan Edwards might say. We aim not only to proclaim Jesus in our sermons, but also with infectious joy in the beauty of our songs.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Related Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/back-to-the-heart-of-worship">Back to the Heart of Worship</a> (article)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-you-hear-the-people-sing">Do You Hear the People Sing?</a> (article)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/seminars/gravity-and-gladness-session-1">Gravity and Gladness</a> (seminar)</p></li>
</ul>Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:45:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/preaching-jesus-with-our-songs
desiringgod.org-resource-8633Facebook Obsession and the Anguish of BoredomTony Reinke<img alt="Facebook Obsession and the Anguish of Boredom" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8631/full_facebook-obsession-and-the-anguish-of-boredom.jpg?1424983010" /><p>Facebook has never been more addictive.</p>
<p>In 2013, it was 63% of Facebook users who checked in daily. In 2014, that number shot up to 70%. If you check Facebook day after day, you join over 864 million others with the same compulsive routine.</p>
<p>For many of us, Facebook is a kind of addiction, a default habit that is now rewiring our brains.</p>
<p>Ofir Turel, a psychologist at Cal State Fullerton, has the research to prove it. To make his point, he says Facebook addicts driving a car are more likely to respond faster to a push notification alert on their phone than to street signs. “That’s the power of Facebook,” he said.</p>
<p>Turel co-authored a study showing Facebook addiction engages the same impulsive regions of the mind as drug addicts, but with one significant difference. Facebook addicts, unlike compulsive drug abusers, “have the <em>ability</em> to control their behavior, but they don’t have the <em>motivation</em> to control this behavior because they don’t see the consequences to be that severe,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Many of you use Facebook and Twitter for noble ends, and this is to be applauded. Many of you are reading this post <em>because of</em> Facebook. But the self-evident reality is that Facebook addiction, like many addictions, is boredom-induced. Facebook is a place to turn when life gets drab, a digital slot machine we pull to win tokens of interesting news or funny videos. It’s designed to be this.</p>
<p>For many users, Facebook is the object we turn to, to satisfy our Boredom-Induced Distraction-Addiction (BIDA). This is when it becomes problematic.</p>
<p>Unhealthy Facebook addiction flourishes because we fail to see the cost on our lives. So what are the consequences of boredom-induced compulsive behaviors? Here are three to consider.</p>
<h2>1. Facebook addiction stifles prayer.</h2>
<p>There seems to be no study comparing the amount of time spent in social media to the satisfaction of one’s prayer life, but all indications are that there’s a problem brewing.</p>
<p>I recently asked Tim Keller, pastor and author of the new bestselling book on prayer, how widespread prayerlessness is. “This is anecdotal, but everybody I talk to seems so busy, and is communicating so incessantly around the clock, that I do think there is more and more prayerlessness, less and less time where people go into a solitary time or place to pray. I am sure we are more prayerless than we have been in the past.” So what does that say about our spiritual health? “Our spiritual health,” he responded candidly, “is in freefall.”</p>
<p>When life gets boring, we increasingly turn to the surprises (and diversions) of our newsfeeds, not to prayer.</p>
<h2>2. Facebook addiction clouds our self-perception.</h2>
<p>Second, BIDAs like Facebook cloud our self-perception. This was the insight of seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal. When observing the youth in his day, he noticed if you “take away their diversion, you will see them dried up with weariness” because “it is indeed to be unhappy . . . as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.”</p>
<p>Undistractedness and silence come with a heaviness we try to alleviate with frivolity, Pascal said. And so we are lured to distractions like Facebook, to be entertained, to fit in, to self-express — anything to break the weight of the silence.</p>
<p>Later, Pascal writes, “Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.”</p>
<p>Without disconnected solitude, we cannot feel the weight of our need; we cannot taste our desperation for God. The weight of boredom is intended to open us to our insufficiency and to awaken us to our hunger for grace.</p>
<h2>3. Facebook addiction blinds us to beauty.</h2>
<p>As Facebook strategists know well, human beings cannot make peace with monotony. Try it. Your heart won’t allow it.</p>
<p>We were not created to live in boredom. Our boredom follows from our sin, and our unalleviated boredom will eventually make us tremendously vulnerable to the lure of trivial distractions and corrupting allurements.</p>
<p>Sam Storms writes, “Boredom is contrary to the natural, God-given impulse for fascination, excitement, pleasure, and exhilaration.” He warns, when faced with a life of boredom, you either die emotionally or “madly rush to whatever extreme and extravagant thrill you can find to replace your misery with pleasure, whether it be pornography, adultery, drugs, or fantasies of fame and power.” Or in your boredom, you will turn to distractions that seem so innocuous as entertainment and the digital slot machine called Facebook.</p>
<p>How we respond to boredom says a lot about our hearts, and explains why we are so prone to addictive lifestyles and habits, Storms writes.</p>
<blockquote><p>Many people who fall into sinful addictions are people who were once terminally bored. The reason why addictions are so powerful is that they tap into that place in our hearts that was made for transcendent communion and spiritual romance. These addictive habits either dull and deaden our yearnings for a satisfaction we fear we’ll never find, or they provide an alternative counterfeit fulfillment that we think will bring long-term happiness — counterfeits like cocaine, overeating, illicit affairs, busyness, efficiency, image, or obsession with physical beauty. They all find their power in the inescapable yearning of the human heart to be fascinated and pleased and enthralled. Our hearts will invariably lead us either to the fleeting pleasures of addiction or to God.</p></blockquote>
<p>This same allurement is behind the “big” addictions, the “little” addictions, and every addiction in between. In the words of an old axiom, <em>idle hands do the devil’s work</em>. But more fundamentally, the bored are quick to make peace with sin. Whatever distraction temporarily alleviates our boredom becomes our ethical blindspot. There’s the problem.</p>
<h2>The Cure for Our Boredom</h2>
<p>For creatures like us, created to adore glory, we must find an object worthy of our worship. The cure for boredom is not diversion or distraction, but substantive enthrallment, says John Piper. We must encounter God, “to be intellectually and emotionally staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging supremacy of Christ in all things.”</p>
<p>Which means that trying to silence our boredom with the compulsive habit of pulling the lever on the slot machine called Facebook is a habit that can be broken. But that will only happen if our compelling vision of God is grand enough to see him as beautiful and “infinitely creative,” so creative, that for those who worship him, Piper says, “there will be no boredom for the next trillion ages of millenniums.”</p>
<hr />
<p><em>For more on this topic, see “<a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/six-ways-your-phone-is-changing-you">Six Ways Your iPhone Is Changing You</a>.”</em></p>
<hr />
<p>Sources for this article:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rebecca Strong, “<a href="http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/02/03/why-delete-facebook-facebook-addiction-similar-to-cocaine-addiction">Brain Scans Show How Facebook and Cocaine Addictions Are the Same</a>,” BostInno (February 3, 2015)</li>
<li>Drake Baer, “<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/science-behind-why-facebook-is-addictive-2014-11">The Science Behind Why Facebook Is So Addictive</a>,” Business Insider (November 13, 2014)</li>
<li>Tony Reinke, “<a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/10-questions-on-prayer-with-tim-keller">10 Questions on Prayer with Tim Keller</a>,” desiringGod.org (October 31, 2014)</li>
<li>Blaise Pascal, <em><a href="https://archive.org/stream/thoughtslettersm028185mbp#page/n7/mode/2up">Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works</a></em> (New York; 1910), 51, 63</li>
<li>Sam Storms, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1576831884">Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Enjoying God</a></em> (NavPress; 2011)</li>
<li>John Piper, “<a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/gods-design-for-history-the-glory-of-his-mercy">God’s Design for History: The Glory of His Mercy</a>,” desiringGod.org (March 14, 2004)</li>
<li>John Piper, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1576736652">The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God</a></em> (Multnomah; 2000), 188</li>
</ul>Fri, 27 Feb 2015 14:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/facebook-obsession-and-the-anguish-of-boredom
desiringgod.org-resource-8631Why Things Often Don’t Make SenseJon Bloom<img alt="Why Things Often Don’t Make Sense" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8632/full_why-things-often-don-t-make-sense.jpg?1424991475" /><p>We humans have an irrepressible need to make sense of the world and our experience in it.</p>
<h2>Meaninglessness Is an Illusion</h2>
<p>Darwinian naturalists believe that we adapted this need for meaning in order to secure food and pass along our genes. Nonsense. Such a belief implies that the kind of meaning that means the most to us is an illusion. And the ironic result, if we <em>really</em> embrace the belief that there is no meaning beyond calories and copulation, is that we neither want to eat nor pass along our genes. Meaninglessness robs us of our appetites. It makes us hate the life that our genes allegedly want above all to preserve (Ecclesiastes 2:17).</p>
<p>No, we hunger for meaning because meaning exists, just like we hunger for food because food exists. Meaning is not the illusion; meaninglessness is the illusion.</p>
<h2>The Dispelling of the Illusion</h2>
<p>However, it is a powerful illusion. The world and our experience in it frequently do not make sense to us. Events unfold in ways that often look wrong to us and feel confusing. They can appear random. They can appear contrary to God’s character and promises and more like the grinding gears of an indifferent cosmos. And not being able to make sense of them is very hard for us to bear and tempts us toward cynical unbelief.</p>
<p>But the Bible is given to us for the express purpose of dispelling this illusion. In it God reveals the great meaning that is infused into all things (Colossians 1:16), the meaning that our souls hunger for and need in order to live, just like our bodies need food to live. For we do “not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Meaning comes from God and we receive it through his word.</p>
<h2>The Most Meaningful Story</h2>
<p>What the Bible reveals to us is that we all have the incredible privilege (what superlative can suffice?) of being chosen to play a role in the greatest epic story ever conceived by the greatest Author that exists. It is the story of the glory of God (Romans 11:36). And it is being told on such a grand scale that God must give us strength to comprehend it (Ephesians 3:18). Everything in the material universe, from the most massive galaxy to the tiniest molecular particle is involved and is itself telling a part of the story (Psalm 19:1). And there are worlds unseen to us and dimensions unknown to us that are part of this story (Colossians 1:16). Every immaterial thought we have is part of the story (2 Corinthians 10:5).</p>
<p>And this is the most real story that exists, for this story is reality. All the characters involved are real. All the tragedies and comedies are real. The cosmic war is as real as it gets. The stakes are real, the risks are real, the dangers are real, the punishments are real and the rewards are real. The story is so creative that it is by definition creation; it is so imaginative that its images are real. All our stories, all our artistic endeavors are merely copies and shadows, pointers to or distortions of the Great Story, the Great Composition.</p>
<h2>Why Things Appear Senseless</h2>
<p>Is it then any wonder why things we see or experience don’t make sense to us? At any given time we are only seeing a tiny, tiny fraction of the story. And the truth is, our sinful pride often leads us to a selfish myopic reading of it. We end up foolishly putting more faith in the tiny bit that we see rather than the immense things God, the Author, says.</p>
<p>But doesn’t the Bible give us example after example after example of saints whose experience for a while — perhaps much or even all of their lives — looked wrong and yet turned out to be part of a story far larger and more meaningful than they previously imagined?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Didn’t infertility look wrong to Abraham and Sarah for decades?</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t you think that to Moses, whose life began with so much promise and apparent significance, shepherding another man’s livestock for 40 years in the Midian wilderness must have felt like a wasted life?</p></li>
<li><p>Didn’t Elimelech’s and Mahlon’s and Chilion’s deaths in Moab look horrible and hopeless to Naomi (Ruth 1)?</p></li>
<li><p>Didn’t it look, both to himself and to everyone else, like the man born blind in John 9 had been cursed by God?</p></li>
<li><p>Didn’t Mary grieve over Jesus’s apparent unresponsiveness to Lazarus’s life-threatening illness?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There are dozens and dozens of such accounts in the Bible. And they all testify to this: How things appear to us as characters in the story is an unreliable conveyor of meaning; we must trust the Author’s perspective.</p>
<h2>Trust the Author</h2>
<p>The Author is telling the story and the Author gives each of us characters and each event more meaning than we could have imagined. What might make no sense to us today is in fact so shot through with meaning that we would be struck speechless in worshipful awe if we knew all that God was doing. And someday we will know and will worship.</p>
<p>The naturalistic prophets are telling you a story of meaningless despair. Do not believe their nonsense. That’s what it is. You have a need for meaning because meaning exists. Meaninglessness is an illusion; it’s a deception.</p>
<p>Therefore do not give in to the temptation to cynicism because you cannot yet make sense of events occurring in the world or in your own life. That is the common experience of a character in a larger story. Trust the Author with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. If in all your ways you acknowledge him, he will direct you in living out most fully and fruitfully the amazing role he has given you to in this most real of all stories (Proverbs 3:5–6). And someday the Author will tell you the Story in full. You will be blown away.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Related Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/conference-messages/the-essence-of-the-unwasted-life">The Essence of the Unwasted Life</a> (seminar)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/books/dont-waste-your-life"><em>Don’t Waste Your Life</em></a> (book)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/drafted">Drafted: Why Chris Norman Said No to the NFL</a> (video)</p></li>
</ul>Fri, 27 Feb 2015 02:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-things-often-don-t-make-sense
desiringgod.org-resource-8632What Do I Read Next?Kim Ransleben<img alt="What Do I Read Next?" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8629/full_what-do-i-read-next.jpg?1424972510" /><p>We all have those moments where a seemingly insignificant statement has far-reaching effects throughout our life. For me, one came 17 years ago when an older mentor was helping me look for resources to grow my faith. As I was looking through the books she kept in her office, I told her that I really wasn’t sure what to read next. She told me to simply scan through the back of my favorite books and find the works those authors had read. Once I read who they read, just repeat the process. The idea was to follow the trail — which means, inevitably, that I came to read a lot of old books.</p>
<h2>On the Trail</h2>
<p>One of the books that started me off shortly after that conversation was my first Piper book, <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/books/the-pleasures-of-god"><em>The Pleasures of God</em></a>. But though the meditations I devoured there had a huge impact on me, it was really the back of the book that set in for long-term influence. I learned there of Henry Scougal’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-God-Soul-Man-Religion/dp/178191107X/"><em>The Life of God in the Soul of Man</em></a> which took very little time to read. However, it took me a couple of years to make it through Stephen Charnock’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Discourses-upon-existence-attributes-God-ebook/dp/B00LTG3OIO/"><em>Discourses on the Existence and Attributes of God</em></a>.</p>
<p>I learned of John Newton and Abraham Kuyper, and witnessed how George Mueller worked through his wife’s death. From Jonathan Edwards I learned how a resolved life flows from a doctrinal life, and from David Brainerd that a short life can be a significant life. Many of those authors in turn led me to Calvin’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Institutes-Christian-Religion-Set/dp/0664220282/"><em>Institutes</em></a> where he in turn quoted a man named Augustine so often that he had to be read next.</p>
<p>References in other books from men like J.I. Packer soon led me to more of the Puritans. For many years, I took Packer seriously that <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/books/the-pilgrim-s-progress"><em>Pilgrim’s Progress</em></a> should be read once a year, and I found that Bunyan’s story became a map of my own life’s twists and turns. He also helped me understand the crucible of suffering, something which went hand in hand with all John Owen taught me about the mortification of sin.</p>
<p>Richard Baxter’s writings on grief sanctified my own, while Thomas Watson introduced me to the Westminister Catechism. Charles Spurgeon soon became a favorite for the peculiar beauty he displayed in holding such a high view of God’s sovereignty over all of life with such a tender heart for those who doubt and disbelieve. It brought home to me that I also want to make the most of the time I have in the place I live with the people God has put in my life.</p>
<h2>Worth the Time</h2>
<p>We know from reading Hebrews 11 that God has always been faithful to draw out men and women who are examples to us in faith — men and women who show us how God can transform our simplest attitudes and most desperate circumstances. That list didn’t end in the Old Testament. God has still given his church those “who walk according to the example” we have in his word (Philippians 3:17) — and finding their books is easier than ever. The hard part is knowing what to read next. So let me commend the advice to you that I once received: Start in the back of your favorite books, and follow the trail.</p>
<p>Slow down your mind to understand their words and context. Piece together their propositions with the Bible by your side so you see their teaching in light of God’s word. Identify with their concerns, restate their arguments, carry their thoughts around with you as you move back into your 21st century world.</p>
<p>We are far better served to live our lives in line with the truth of Jesus when we stop every now and then to breathe in the air of long ago times. Thanks to the introductions Piper and others gave me through their citations, I’ve met a great number of men and women who have helped me see God more clearly. Try it for yourself. Take the time soon to read old books and let those authors introduce you to some of their favorite teachers who will in turn introduce you to even more who fought the fight of faith before us.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Related Articles</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/14-best-books-of-2014">14 Best Books of 2014</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/i-want-to-read-a-john-piper-book-but-where-should-i-start">I Want to Read a John Piper Book, but Where Should I Start?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/24-free-ebooks-for-you">24 Free eBooks for You</a></p></li>
</ul>Thu, 26 Feb 2015 16:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-do-i-read-next
desiringgod.org-resource-8629The Big PictureJohn Piper<img alt="The Big Picture" src="http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/images/resource-images/8630/full_the-big-picture.jpg?1424972882" /><p>John Piper has completed thirty labs working verse-by-verse through Romans 8. In this last lab, he sums up all that we have learned and explains how the highest points relate to each other. We need to be regularly stepping back in our Bible reading to see the bigger picture.</p><p><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/labs/the-big-picture">Watch Now</a></p>Thu, 26 Feb 2015 14:00:00 +0000http://www.desiringgod.org/labs/the-big-picture
desiringgod.org-resource-8630